


Lent Term, 1881

by Cerberusia



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: First Time, M/M, Masturbation, Sharing a Bed, fagging, public school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 10:41:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20190940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: Raffles came back earlier than usual that night, in a strange mood.I'd kept look-out for him, as usual when he took his night-time escapades, and as always I passed the time in agonised contemplation of all potential mischance. But the old groundskeeper had not even begun his second sweep of the night before Raffles was back in the quad and throwing stones at the corridor window, and I scrambled to let down the rope.





	Lent Term, 1881

Raffles came back earlier than usual that night, in a strange mood.

I'd kept look-out for him, as usual when he took his night-time escapades, and as always I passed the time in agonised contemplation of all potential mischance. But the old groundskeeper had not even begun his second sweep of the night before Raffles was back in the quad and throwing stones at the corridor window, and I scrambled to let down the rope.

In the ordinary way of things, I would then have crept back to my own dormitory, which I shared with another fourth-former, who also rejoiced in the Christian name of 'Harry'; though like I was universally known as 'Bunny', he was 'Strike-a-light', for his imprudent use of this vulgar expression in front of a Master who was a stickler for elegance of speech. I often had cause to reflect that I had got off lightly with being nicknamed for my leporine ears.

Strike-a-light was a heavy sleeper and an even heavier snorer, so I was not altogether sorry when Raffles motioned me impatiently into his room after him. Whatever he wanted me for, although it kept me from sleep, would inevitably prove more interesting than being kept from sleep by my stertorious dorm-mate.

"Beastly cold night out there, Bunny," Raffles whispered to me as I shut his set door behind me. He was already undressing for bed. "Here, help me with these." I took out his collar studs while he unbuttoned his waistcoat. Raffles did not usually ask me to act as valet, though some seniors did demand that of their fags. He had already removed his false beard, and I stood ready to pass him the rubbing alcohol to remove the last traces of spirit gum from his face.

I shan't bother to deny that I liked to watch the muscles move under the smooth skin of his back as he took off his shirt. Although he developed a slight tan in summer, in the winter moonlight through the casement he was as smooth and pale as marble, which was a handsome contrast with his dark curls and full red mouth. His colouring suggested a man who ought to have dark blue eyes, the kind that are almost violet; but instead they were a piercing pale blue. As a junior, I was told, he had been quite the prettiest fag in the school, and there had been a bun-fight among the senior boys over who would have Raffles to make his tea and dust his study. As a senior on the verge of going up to university, he was one of the handsomest men I had ever seen.

I found his nightshirt in the drawer and fetched it without being asked.

"What a clever little rabbit you are." I blushed as Raffles took it from me. I have never learnt to accept compliments with equanimity, and certainly not from Raffles.

But Raffles did not put the shirt on. He looked at me instead, and I waited. Surely he hadn't decided to go for another jaunt, to make up for his aborted escapade tonight? I was sorely curious to know why he had cut it short and returned so early, but did not dare ask.

"Here, it's a foul night." It was: it had snowed intermittently earlier in the week, but it was now too bitterly cold even for that. A blizzard had begun in the southwest, and it was expected to reach us tomorrow. The other boys and I had never experienced a blizzard, and we talked of little else. Even in Raffles' rooms, where there had so recently been a fire banked, it was not warm. "I remember those fourth-form rooms with their awful stiff windows - freezing in winter and stifling in summer. In the interests of us both _not_ expiring of hypothermia, why don't you come in with me tonight?"

I have no idea what I said. In fact, I suspect I said nothing, just a gibberish of nonsense syllables that failed to materialise into sentences.

It wasn't as if it was unknown for a fag to warm his senior's bed - or, worse, his toilet seat - but not usually with the senior in it at the time. That was usually something a bit different, that tended to happen to the prettier and more amenable juniors. And I _was_ \- though I says it as shouldn't - rather pretty. But Raffles hadn't told me I was pretty, or tried to kiss me, as a couple of the bolder boys in my year had. He'd just told me to keep him warm.

"In, in!" Raffles had got into bed, still not wearing anything but his drawers, and was motioning for me impatiently. Awkwardly, I did so. I should mention here that I _was_ wearing my nightgown, the ordinary kind of undyed cotton trimmed with lace that had been popular for, as far as I know, forever. It seems strange to look back and think that in just a few years, the garment would fall so woefully out of fashion in favour of pyjamas that one would read sneering editorials in the paper about it.

I was also _not_ wearing drawers. I didn't usually, to bed - though I'd wished a time or two while waiting in that draughty corridor for Raffles that I had that night.

It occurred to me, as I slipped between the frigid sheets, that Raffles would no doubt be warmer if he were _dressed_ a little more warmly. But before I could open my mouth to ask, Raffles' warm arms wrapped around me and I was pulled into his embrace. I squeaked, and he laughed.

"Oh, Bunny, there's no need to be as _nervous_ as a rabbit. Isn't this all perfectly friendly?"

It was, indeed, very friendly. Raffles held me to his chest - his bare chest, as I kept remembering, and I could feel the rise and fall of his lungs. The room was dark, but there was moonlight strong enough that if I opened my eyes, I could make out his neck and the curls of his hair where they touched the nape. His chin was starting to grow dark with stubble. There were four years between us, and I felt every one of them. Raffles looked like a man, and I was still a boy.

I slept, though I don't know how. If we were caught, they would make the obvious assumption, and Raffles would be lucky not to be sent down. But Raffles was warm and his bed a sight more comfortable than mine, and so, even though being in bed with a handsome senior was having predictable effects on my teen-aged body, I slept the sleep of the just.

When I woke, it was still dark. There was no way to tell how much time had passed without holding Raffles' watch, which he had left on the beside cabinet, to the window. There were the faint noises of pheasants in the fields surrounding the school, and what might have been an owl in the quad. The atmosphere was very still. There was nothing that should have awakened me.

Except the movement of the mattress.

We had moved a little during the night, so that Raffles now lay more on his back that on his side, though he still had an arm around me - which must surely, I thought, be numb under my weight by now. And with the other arm...I could not see what he was doing, because it was under the covers. But I recognised the motion.

I lay still, as if paralysed. I couldn't believe - I felt the blood rushing to my face - here, _now_, with me in the bed - I dared not move in case he noticed me. I was instantly, achingly awake. All I could do was lie there and watch, and feel, and know what he was doing.

Time passed, a minute or so. Perhaps he caught the glint of light off my eye, because suddenly he turned his face to me, and I was trapped. I trembled with fear at being caught spying; but Raffles' face showed surprise, but no consternation. After a moment, his expression relaxed into a rueful smile.

"Beg your pardon, old thing," he whispered. "I came back so damnably worked-up...well, you're in the fourth form, you know how it is."

If by 'it' he meant the frequent and near-irrepressible urge to self-abuse, then yes, I did. Supposedly it was the reason why the junior boys' toilet stalls had no doors, as a previous Headmaster had attempted to discourage the habit. Still, all the boys I knew talked about it, and I had little doubt that we all did it in whatever privacy we could snatch.

Raffles, it seemed, didn't care about privacy. He had gone back to moving his hand, and I watched it under the blanket as if hypnotised.

"C-can I see it, Raffles?" I managed to whisper at last. It took a great deal of courage to do so, because despite his cavalier attitude, Raffles might well draw the line at juniors taking too much interest; but Raffles just said,

"Of course." And he kicked the blanket down just far enough that I could.

It occurred to me, much later, that this was all too pat. That he had _wanted_ me to ask this. Even in the sixth form, Raffles' powers of manipulation were already well progressed. But at the time I thought none of this. I just looked at Raffles, revealed.

It was nearly too dark to see him at all, but I daren't light a candle. What I saw was what the moonlight caught. I already knew the way his strong neck flowed into his broad shoulders and chest; had guessed at the trail of dark hair below his navel. But I looked at him, all of him, and my eyes were drawn to what I had asked to see: Raffles' hand, working his prick beneath my eager gaze.

I had never yet seen the erect adult male genitals, though I was reliably informed that a couple of the senior boys had plans to try to change that. I was not a complete innocent, as I had engaged in mutual fumbling with a few of my peers who had got past my natural reticence by the simple expedient of pushing me down and groping me; this forceful approach was most agreeable to both of us, and once so persuaded I joined in eagerly. But Raffles' prick - his whole body - was quite different to that of my fellow juniors, even the fittest among them.

I watched him, desperate to capture everything of the moment, which the dark room made so intimate. Raffles' body, his breathing, his movement - I knew already that this was all I would think of in my fevered erotic fantasies for the rest of this year. A muscle in his stomach clenched as he rubbed his thumb over the head, and my whole body throbbed in sympathy.

"Here, sit up." I scrambled clumsily to obey. "Yes, over me, like this -" He positioned me as he liked, so that we were facing each other, me sitting between his hairy calves and he between my smooth ones, which were thrown over his powerful thighs. The night was still bitter, and I wrapped the blanket around us both as best I could.

Raffles laughed, a low sound. "Now, isn't the phrase, 'If you show me yours, I'll show you mine'?"

Blood pounding in my ears, I slowly eased the hem of my nightgown up my thighs. As I did so, I was conscious of what a girlish gesture it was - hardly befitting of the sophisticated youth I had ambitions to be (ambitions, I must say, that have still only been partially realised). But Raffles, though he was smiling his indolent smile, gave no sign that he was laughing at me. He just watched, patiently, as I revealed my stiff member. I couldn't conceal my embarrassment at being seen in such a state, but nor could I conceal how thrilling I found it to have Raffles look at my pale, soft body with such keen interest.

"Mhm," he said, thoughtfully. His hand was still moving lazily. I longed to do the same. "You've started doing it, haven't you?" he asked suddenly, and I could not pretend to be ignorant of his meaning. "I'm sure you have, we were all mad for it in the fourth form."

"Yes," I whispered, absurdly mortified. I envisioned Raffles interrogating me about my habits: how often? when? with whom? And I would sit there on his bed and answer him, my prick straining eagerly all the while. At this thought, it moved on its own, and I had to fight not to drop the hem of my nightgown and squeeze it.

"Well, do it, then. No reason for you to be left out." His half-closed eyes dropped to my exposed private parts, and under his cool assessment my prick dribbled a little fluid. I was in no state to be shy, and ought to have thrown my modesty out the frost-rimed window; but still I felt my blush growing more intense as I let myself do as Raffles commanded. My breathing sounded very loud to my ears as I took my prick delicately in hand. I was so excited that my legs were twitching, just a little, and I could see my toes curling and uncurling at Raffles' sides. I was still holding up my nightgown with one hand.

We played with ourselves like that, while watching each other. I took in everything I could of the scene before me: Raffles, debauched. And he was looking at me in return, which normally made me self-conscious, but I was too excited to be embarrassed by his blatant regard.

I couldn't hold out for long, and when I felt that tension contracting at the base of my spine I lost all shame and worked furiously at my prick, so modest compared to the one in front of me, until I spent in my hand with great heaving breaths and a couple of noises I couldn't restrain. A vision came to me, unbidden, of ejaculating onto Raffles' white belly instead.

I panted and watched Raffles watching me, watched his hand, imagined it was my hand in its place, stroking him, bringing him to orgasm and feeling his body jerk and tremble because of what I was doing to him, not the other way round.

He spent not long after me, in long shuddering pulses, and I watched with my heart in my mouth and all my attention fixed on him: the way his prick jumped in his hand as he ejaculated, the way his eyes closed and his mouth opened in a grimace. I drank in the sight of Raffles, uncontrolled.

At last, he opened his eyes and looked at me with a bright and lazy glint.

"Be a dear and fetch my handkerchief, won't you, old chap?"

I did. It seemed very intimate to share the same handkerchief to clean ourselves up, like there was something significant in our seed mixing. Raffles smiled at me with his usual indolent grin that seemed to suggest conspiracy as he tossed it under the bed.

"Don't worry, I'll wash it out tomorrow and the dame will be none the wiser," he assured me upon seeing my face. "Now get back up here before you get frostbite. I'll wake you in good time to get back to your own dorm."

Knowing it was unwise, I scrambled into his arms once more, and we arrayed the blanket to our mutual comfort. It _was_ freezing, though I had been so overheated with excitement for the past few minutes that I had ceased to notice it. Now I was uncomfortably reminded, and I nestled into Raffles' body heat.

Raffles was true to his word, and woke me before dawn so that I could return, shivering, to my own dorm, where Shine-a-light slumbered the sleep of the untroubled. But I had thought that just before I truly awoke to the sensation of Raffles' gentle shaking, I had felt his big hand stroking, with possessive tenderness, over my head.


End file.
